A hood assembly of a vehicle may be designed to be low profile, e.g., a relatively low hood height, which may allow for a desired styling. However, such a design may bring panels of the hood assembly closer to relative hard points under the hood assembly, e.g., an engine. Thus, the “crush space” between the hood and underlying hard points is reduced. A desire for a low profile design for a hood assembly may be in tension with design factors that favor increased “crush space” to reduce the likelihood of head impact injuries to pedestrians involved in pedestrian-vehicle impacts. Specifically, the increased “crush space” spaces the pedestrian from the relative hard points under the hood assembly and/or allows for greater hood deformation, which absorbs energy from and reduces the impact velocity of the pedestrian.
Therefore, there remains an opportunity to design an improved design to allow low-profile hood assembly styling while accommodating design factors to reduce the likelihood of injury to pedestrians during pedestrian-vehicle impacts.